Strategic CIO Advisors

HP’s composable story addresses the evolving enterprise

Last week, HP Enterprise (HPE) pulled together a number of influencers from around North America for a unique event. Unlike most events that talk about specific products or announcements, this event was quite different. This event dug into HPE’s direction around ‘composable’ infrastructure and how it addresses the needs of the evolving enterprise organization.

WHAT IS COMPOSABLE

We have heard about composable concepts for some time. HPE’s approach is to apply the composable concept to that of infrastructure by assembling compute, storage and networking resources for the benefit of a given set of applications. An application, via HPE’s Application Program Interface (API) is able to pull together resources as needed. When they are no longer required, the resources go back into the ‘resource pools’.

Now some may scoff at the notion and suggest this is nothing new. They would be right except for one little twist that makes a big difference. HPE’s approach addresses the broader needs of the enterprise and disparate applications…using a single infrastructure solution.

SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE

HPE’s Project Synergy was announced at HP Discover in Las Vegas in June and the approach is fairly straightforward. A single infrastructure stack that addresses the needs for all types of applications. That does not mean a separate stack for legacy applications from the stack that supports newer applications. It means that there is a single infrastructure stack that supports all types of applications…on the same stack.

The resources (compute, storage, network) sit in resource pools within the stack. As an application spins up, it addresses the API at which point the resources are composed for that application. When the resources are no longer needed, they return to their respective resource pools ready for the next application. As an example, resources might be used for a legacy application one minute, return to the pool and then recomposed for a new style of application only to return to the pool and be used for yet another application.

WHAT THIS MEANS FOR THE ENTERPRISE

By using a single infrastructure stack for all types of applications, customers are no longer worried about stranded resources as applications move from legacy to newer architectures. Resources are immediately available for repurpose via the resource pools.

Historically, enterprises faced a myriad of infrastructure stacks to support the varied application styles. As we see applications leverage new styles of architectures, the number of potential stacks under the traditional approach leads to increased complexity. By sharing resources through application pools and composability, it allows enterprises to focus less on infrastructure and focus further up in the application stack which is closer to the true business engagement.